Soccer Mom

I've been meaning to write this post for awhile. Most of you may already know that we have signed up both kids for a Soccer League. (Yes, it's supposed to be capitalized, so that you say it with the proper amount of reverence.) A new league started in our town, and a bunch of people from a competing league lost a bunch of players (defectors or traitors, depending on which league you are in) because they followed our coach.

Anyhow, this coach is from Nigeria, and everything he says is taken as gospel by Habtamu. We get lots of "Eno says..." and Lee and I look at each other and murmur, "Didn't we tell him that last week?" I'm all for backup from a big, tall Nigerian. I had to ask him to talk sense into H last night, who wanted to be a martyr because he forgot his jacket and wouldn't take the sweatshirt I offered. Eno asked, "Is he ok? Just playing the fool?" "Yep." "Habta! Put this on!" I talked to H later and said, "You know, I'll go to Eno if I need to, but I'd rather have you listen to ME when I tell you something." "Ok, mom." There may have been an eyeroll involved. (Possibly mine. I'm not saying.)

We were originally just going to sign Habtamu up, but someone got Yordanos to practice with the team, and she liked it too. Their practices are on the same days, back to back... meaning 3 times a week from 5-7:30. They have a 1/2 hour overlap.

They had their 1st tournament last weekend, in Elgin, so we stayed at Lee's folks' house, which is about 2 miles from the tournament. Habtamu's team (the under 13s, or U-13 co-ed) didn't win any of their 3 games, but Yordi's team (U-11 girls) won their second game. The big winner from our league was the U-18 girls. They won all 3 games (2 were shutouts) and won their play-off game. Yordi was so excited about them winning. "Hey! It doesn't matter that my team didn't win! The big girls won, and they're Shadows, and we're Shadows, too, so we all win." Indeed.

Yordi had so much fun playing, that, after the 1st game, she ran off the field toward us yelling, "Yay! We won!" "Um, no you didn't." "We didn't? Oh well, it was SO FUN!"

Habtamu was sad, of course, that they didn't win any. But, boy, you could see their improvement from one game to the next. They're the team with kids from the most different places... kids that have not played together before. (I guess the U-18 girls are like that, too, but they have the maturity and experience to be able to adapt more quickly.)

If we're not around much for the next, oh, infinity plus one, you'll know why. We're a soccer family now.